Another Voice Calling For The End Of Web 2.0

It's an old, old refrain. It seems that all over the place people are suggesting that the Web 2.0 term has reached it's end; that it doesn't have enough legs.

The newest is Charlie Cooper:

[from Why it's time to dump the Web 2.0 sobriquet once and for all | Coop's Corner : A Blog from Charlie Cooper - CNET News.com]

I don't know where we are in the transition, but there's no getting around the fact that the constellation of forces in software is shifting. Companies like Twitter still draw more comment in the blogosphere, but look what's happening with Web 2.0. We're now in a phase where bigger hardware and software companies with deep pockets are starting to predominate. (In many cases, because they buy up innovative start-ups to get into the game such as AOL-Beebo. Other times because they come up with new technology models like Microsoft's cloud platform push with Live Services and Live Mesh.) Lots of reasons behind the enterprise companies' interest but maybe it boils down to something as simple as companies just trying to stay relevant. Fact is that as more young people graduate into the work place, the new generations will import online habits they learned growing up into their work routines.

In a recession, they'll fare better in any storm than companies which don't have an apparent exit strategy, according to Barry Schuler, a former CEO of America Online and now a private investor.

"With social media, no one's figured out how to monetize things yet," Schuler said. "In a certain sense, it looks a lot like 1997. The hiccup will be if there is a recession. The least proven stuff, the companies that haven't decoded a business model, will be the stuff that gets dropped. If there's one thing we learned through the Internet bubble, you can say this is a new economy, but in the end, P&L does matter."

We're fast approaching a point where it's time to find a more fitting sobriquet. Better yet, maybe we should just dump an awkward marketing umbrella term entirely. It just gets in the way of clear thinking.

This is simply four paragraphs smushed together. It's not an argument. It's not some reasoned case for why we should put the term Web 2.0 aside, is it? Let's parse this:

1. Bigger companies are starting to pay attention to the notions, technologies, and communities that are involved in whatever this Web 2.0 thing is.
2. Young people are moving into the workforce having adopted Web 2.0 technologies.
3. In a recession, 'they'll' fare better -- does he mean the larger companies that are adopting Web 2.0 ideas, or the young people entering the workforce? I guess he means the companies, although grammar suggests the young people. Ok, so bigger companies -- like Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL -- are more likely to weather a recession.
4. Companies without a proven business model will have a difficult time in a recession. What does that mean exactly? That investors won't invest? That users won't click on ads? That people won't pay the $4.95 per month for Suicide Girls? All of the above? Huh? Who said money doesn't matter?
5. Therefore, time to drop the Web 2.0 term. Huh? What did I miss? So, young people and large established companies are starting to adopt Web 2.0 thinking and technologies. We are headed into a recession. QED: Time to drop the term.

There is no argument offered here people, move on. This is less interesting than the self-serving types (like Jason Calacanis) that have tried to define Web 3.0 to position their tools or companies, but it is equally dumb.

Web 2.0 is a fine term that distinguishes what is going on today from what preceded it, and until something really different comes on -- no matter what Charlie Cooper and his ilk may say -- it's here to stay.

Comments

[Andy Abramson]

There are Product Managers in Fortune 500 companies with bigger budgets to fund campaigns around new products and new services than startups ever see.

All it takes is a cultural shift at some of these corporations to let imagination run wild and see what happens.

Fortunately, that won't happen too quickly or VC's would be in trouble as the innovation would be with the big guys, with deep pockets. So, for now, since the big companies aren't wired to work that way, the start up world survives.

[Jason]

I think you might have my web 3.0 definition/project pimping reversed... I believe the future of the web--web 3.0--is experts putting a layer on top of the web 2.0 wisdom of the crowds and based on that believe I started Mahalo.

I didn't start Mahalo and then say "oh, let me make a web 3.0 definition to pump it up.

Mahalo is a five year project, so one would hope it is based on my view of the next 10 years.

rock on,

jason

[charlie cooper]

"Charlie Cooper and his ilk..." Jeez, Stowe, we could have initiated you, too, into the ilk when you got into the car with Rafe & me last month. Anyway, sure looks like I pushed a button somewhere.

If you like the Web 2.0 term, fine. But I believe it's increasingly dated. And if the economy slows further, you damn well know advertising will be first in line to get whacked hard. That's not going to do much for CPMs, which already blow. And just like in so many other chapters of the computer industry, the bigger companies are moving into the space. Personally, it makes no difference what you call it. But the times, they are a changing - whether some folks like it or not.

Regards

[Stowe Boyd]

Jason -

Yeah, but I don't think the sequence of events is what I was getting at: just the fact that your definition of Web 3.0 lines up with what Mahalo is.

[Stowe Boyd]

Charlie - 'Ilk' is not a disparaging term: it just means a kind or sort of people. I don't agree with your 'argument', that's all. We can still be friends.

[charlie cooper]

amen to that. the next jameson's (one cube, please) is on me